Bios:
Luigi Ferrara
Luigi Ferrara is a graduate with distinction in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto. He worked for the internationally recognized firm Stirling/Wilford Associates, and locally with Peter Turner Architects, Paul Reuber Architect and Russocki/Zawadzki Architects. Luigi is an Honorary Member of the Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario and a Senator of the World Design Organization, the UN recognized NGO for Design. He served on the Board of the World Design Organization from 1996-2002 and was President from 2003–2005. He is currently a WDO Senator.
Ferrara has spent his entire career advocating and practicing interdisciplinary design, both in Canada and internationally, working on the relationship between architecture, urban design, sustainability and digital transformation, brand strategy and design thinking.
Luigi is currently the Dean of the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology (2002-2023) and has been the Director of Institute without Boundaries, a renowned interdisciplinary studio. In 2022, Luigi was named the inaugural Chair and CEO of the Brookfield Sustainability Institute, a center of excellence that will be housed at Limberlost Place, George Brown College’s net-zero carbon emissions mass-timber building that is set to open at Waterfront Campus in 2024.
Monica Contreras
Monica Contreras is a registered architect, planner and real estate development project manager. She has extensive experience and expertise in design and construction of infrastructure, heritage adaptive re-use, capital renovations and new capital buildings for commercial-residential, institutional and telecommunications projects. Currently, Monica is Lead Architect of the Architectural Program Delivery for Bell Real Estate, part of the in-house Facilities Infrastructure Team. In addition to an architectural career,
Monica has taught at the Institute without Boundaries and the Design Management Post graduate programs at George Brown College integrated design and systems thinking for the past 15 years. As an associated researcher and charrette leader, she embeds strategic and sustainable systems knowledge into real-world thematic curriculum and develops new design methods, process and tools to empower students to activate transformative change.
Sylvie Tessier
Sylvie’s career in technology spans more than 35 years in many sectors including the Global Payment Industry, ERP solutions, Business Continuity, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Telecom. She has held senior positions with various organizations, e.g. ACI Worldwide, a leader in electronic payments, HP Canada, CIBC, SunGard and Oracle. Sylvie was the President of Enghouse Systems Ltd, a leader in GIS. She is an Academic Projects Advisor, School of Computer Technology for the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology at George Brown College.
Sylvie holds an MBA from the University of Toronto and Bachelors of Applied Science and of Biology from the University of Ottawa. She is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors Ontario Executive Chapter and has the ICD.D certification. She is a board member of Metrolinx.
Pablo Corell Egea
Pablo holds a dual Industrial Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Politecnico di Milano, an MBA from Ramon Llull University and a Master's in Business Sustainability Management from Cambridge University.
In 2019, Corell started its own management consultancy company which, after only two years, was fastly integrated into Deloitte's firm. Pablo is currently co-leading the Climate & Sustainability practice at Deloitte’s Financial Advisory unit in Spain and collaborates worldwide as an M&A ESG expert.
Specialized in corporate sustainability strategies and impact accounting structures, Pablo is focused on delivering effective and measurable financial, economic, environmental and social impact through cutting-edge corporate sustainability models.
During his professional career, Pablo has led specific ESG strategies, digitalization plans and impact-measuring projects for clients such as IBM, GO, Bayer and Siemens. Thanks to his technical profile and extensive knowledge of corporate sustainability environments, Pablo can expose and prospect advanced ESG & Corporate sustainability risks & opportunities.
